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The Means To An End
Smelter - Darkmount -- The Past The heat and light here is unbearable, suffocating, and, should one spend too much time on this, the lowest ledge around the smelting pits, damaging. The molten metal is stirred by those unlucky enough to work down here, operating from ledges and walkways. Down here, beneath the ground level, the tower switches from a cylinder to a cone so that the massive crucible has room to pour out its metal into molds and lined ditches that carry the glowing metal off to be tempered, cooled, used. Obvious exits: Up leads to Entry Hall - Darkmount -- The Past. Straxus has arrived. Catechism is working down in the smelters today. If Straxus did it, she can't complain. That might be just a fable, but she suspects there is something of the truth to it. It has that ring. So Jazz tricked her again, yesterday. With another stupid fake bomb! Of course, from this Jazz's perspective, he's only done it once. So as punishment for her failure, here she works, on the lowest level, in the sweltering heat. Catechism may be to withstand re-entry, but it doesn't make any of this enjoyable. Idly, Catechism wonders how her stirring pole doesn't melt. Straxus checks down here periodically. It's good to keep an eye on those beneath you, both literally and figuratively. Right now is periodically. He walks down the steps with his usual slow, certain march, gazing out over his handiwork... and spying something out of place. He hmmms softly to himself, then walks heavily towards Catechism. Catechism grumbles, "Soundwave asked for help over in Ibex but couldn't stay, himself. He had Ultra Magnus prisoner. Grimlock and Jazz objected. I tried to rally the locals - some Seeker, a project of Soundwave's called Primatus, and... Zeal." She did wish Zeal dead, and Zeal just might be dead now, according to the reports. Catechism is not sure how to feel about that. "But Jazz tricked me with a fake bomb. Thus." Catechism shrugs, still stirring, stirring, stirring. Would be easy to go stir crazy, here. She replies, "Not really sure. I went looking for the bomb and didn't see. Just read the reports, when I finally realised there was no bomb to be found." Sure, she argued with Zeal right before, but she didn't have anything to do with his death. Catechism is a bit disappointed with herself. She could have at least pushed him into the line of fire! "Hmmm," is all that Straxus has to say to that. He does not look directly at Catechism. Rather, he watches her stir. After a moment, he observes, "Of course, you realize that my failure," his failure - he owns up to it, "at Iacon sets back my search for the engines." He seems to be assuming that Catechism knew that's what he was looking for. Catechism nods, and she replies dully, "Yeah. That it does. But I can always go looking for Monacus or, if worst comes to worst, just... survive to the future all over again." She chews her lip, staring out at the molten metal. It sears the optics, even from a distance, burning its way into the back of her head. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to forget it, even if she took a magnet to every last memory bank. "Hmmm," Straxus replies once more. He falls silent, considering. "My brother's mention of the Quartzite Mountains has me intrigued. With him, often even the most casual, haphazard seeming references have meaning." He pauses. "He is very cryptic, though not so bad as Excelsius." That's right. Straxus is the straight-forward, easy to understand one of the three. And Straxus is the Father of Lies. The Decepticons are so lucky! Catechism continues to eye Straxus out of the corner of her vision. It would be so easy just to give someone a shove here, she thinks. It has to happen, not just to prisoners, knowing her people, even if these aren't her people. "Can't say they mean anything to me. They're pretty, but that's about it." "They are also not of Cybertron," Straxus answers. He continues to /not/ watch Catechism, though there is something very... alert about his stance. Catechism cannot take a break in her toil to rub her chin. She says conversationally, "Yeah? I guess we'd run into space junk, now and then. Funny that it stayed so intact. Or do you mean something else?" "Not yet," answers Straxus, gazing out over the glowing red. "I might some day, however." Catechism stares out over the waveless ocean of melted dead metal and replies simply, "Ah." "So tell me, Catechism," Straxus begins after a long silent, "breaker of the fourth. Why are you so well studied, while the others know so little? What has made you a hunter after secret knowledge?" Silence and working at the pools while one of the most dangerous Decepticons in history stand near enough to push her into the smelt. The break in the quiet comes as welcome relief, and Catechism frowns. "Well-studied? Uh..." She thinks about what she knows of those sent back in time. Astrotrain: frat boy. Blueshift: special. Grimlock: ZOMG DINOBOT. Human: squishy. But the medics: Harrow, Fairway, and Patchwork, and certainly even Ultra Magnus... he's comparing her to them? She says finally, "I think, Lord Protector, that you're just a bit unlucky right now." "You think?" Straxus answers, standing once more. He shrugs. "Perhaps I am. After all, I have a host of unwanted enemies invading in my time... and worse, a meddling Autobot who, should he get his act together, may yet manage to re-unite his faction." His strange mouth pulls back into a smile. "I wonder if he is willing to go so far as to kill a Prime. That would be interesting to watch, don't you think?" Catechism observes, tone low, "Unwanted enemies? Is the measure of a man not the enemies he choses but the enemies who choose him?" With her pole she pokes at a chunk that is being stubborn to dissolve. "I'm a soldier. I know what 'interesting' really means. That /would/ be interesting. Interesting enough to want to stop before it gets half as interesting as it could be." "Ah. Then these are not really enemies at all," Straxus answers with a derisive snort. "They did not choose me. I was chosen for them. From half remembered legends they know me. They seem to think I am their devil, but they are wrong." As Catechism comments on interesting, he chuckles. "No. No, I would not stop it, for all that Prime's life is useful to me. That one, Ultra Magnus... he is already meddling freely... it is only a matter of /time/ before he tries to use his knowledge of that is to come to conquer fate. And any who would take time like a tyrant..." Straxus clenches his fist. "If he would willingly derail what is to come, to provide a guiding hand to the course of the future... eventually, he will realize that it is not just time, but the universe that needs that guiding hand." And now Straxus's strange mouth forms a mockery of a smile. "And then... it does not matter what symbol he wears. He will be one of mine." Catechism agrees soberly, sounding as if she can speak from experience, "You're definitely not our devil. In any sense of it." Not Unicron, not Vector Zeta, not the Fallen general. She puts her hesitation aside, and she notes, "I had hoped he'd put worries of factions aside long enough to at least seek your advice. Hnn. You make it sound like he doesn't need it." "Oh, had he come to me, and had he proven himself worthy, I would have told him," Straxus states. "I would have told him what I was looking for, even why." Again, that horrible smile. "But he thinks he already knows me enough that without knowing what I am trying to accomplish, I should be stopped, when what he prevents is his own escape." Catechism stares up, all the way up, because above this hellish smelter, there is a throne room where, when the Lord Protector sits on his throne, an axe hangs above his head. She mouths 'worthy'. Something clicks inside of her. She may never have a chance to say this again, and if she doesn't, she'll be left wondering. Catechism looks away from her stirring, directly at Straxus. He's a cool figure against the brightness, soothingly dark to bright-burned optics. She says, "If I seem at all knowledgeable, it's because some books I read left me worried about what was going to happen to us," the Transformers. "Well. Okay. I got interested in the books because one of my commanders, snapped, went loony, and blew up a spaceport - and that's off topic. Thing is, I was /right/ to be worried about what I read in those books. Vector Zeta and the Fallen general did get loose from the belly of Medusa. G... the Decepticon leader at the time decided to merge with Vector Zeta, for power. I can't fault him for seeking power, but I didn't want to become an automaton, a puppet. So when the Autobots faced down the Fallen general, I stood with them and even tricked another Decepticon into helping." Straxus's cool is broken at the mention of Vector Zeta, and his optics burn brightly as he /stares/ at Catechism, mouth faintly open. After a long moment, he murmurs, "It never ends," before adding, louder, "I knew it would happen some day. You... you may not be able to fault him for seeking power, but I. I may fault him for wanting to make of his men puppets. One who can lead only the mindless is no leader. It is fortunate that he was stopped before he learned that first hand." Catechism is pleased to not find herself sinking beneath the waveless ocean of the smelter for her words, and she echoes, as if quoting something, "It never ends." She observes, "The Autobots stood against him because they always stand against us. Just like Ultra Magnus spurns you now. Worked out well enough then, having a Prime on the scene. My little 'friend' and I wouldn't have cut it." That is honesty, painful as it may be; the delusion would be worse. She considers his words about wanting to lead the mindless. "Anything for power but that?" "Power is the means to an end, not the end itself," Straxus rumbles, turning away from the temporally displaced Decepticon. "All I do, I do for Her. For Cybertron, my father's first child. The power I gain, the conquests I make, they are in Her honor." Catechism looks rather startled and tilts her head to one side, murmuring, "So Primus did have a daughter, then." How odd. She never would have thought of it that way. Catechism has a flash of insight - Straxus is the Lord Protector. Of course his planet would be first on his mind. With later Decepticons, though, it is Cybertron that is just a means to an end, and the end itself is power. How the Decepticons have changed! Catechism finds herself ambivalent. Straxus dies. She knows that. So he will prove himself unfit, in the end. But still... ...he's always alive in the past, isn't he? "He did," Straxus answers softly. And he is.